Election in Malaysia

A round table discussion on three recent elections
in Asia was organized by the Philippine Center for
Islam and Democracy (PCID) in UP Diliman on May 31.
These elections were held in Pakistan, Malaysia and
the Philippines (with emphasis on the Autonomous
Region in Muslim Mindanao - ARMM). Mr. Raveendran
Nair of the Malaysian Embassy in Manila gave a
report on the last election better referred to by
the media and the political contestants as General
Election 2013. Mr. Nair gave a brief presentation on
the election process as well as the results. There
was hardly any room for disagreement on what was
presented.

It was reported that of the 222 seats up for grabs,
the ruling party (UMNO) got 133 while the opposition
(Pakatan Rakyat) received 89. Mr. Nair did not find
it significant to mention that while the ruling
party was allotted 60% of the seats in parliament,
it received only 46.6% of the popular vote. He did
mention though that Malaysia’s system is
first-past-the post in single member constituencies.
But how does the proportion of seat allocation
relate with the mantra, “one person, one vote, equal
value”?

Civil Society Organizations in Malaysia involved
with monitoring elections have long brought out the
issue of “border realignment, delimitation,
demarcation but this was met with deafening silence
by the ruling party” said a local election observer.
In the delimitation of constituencies, urban areas
that normally vote for the opposition have three to
four times more voters per constituency than the
rural areas which normally vote for the ruling
party. Hence, the disparity in the seat allocation
vis-à-vis the popular vote.

Malaysia has laws similar to the decrees of Marcos
during martial law in the Philippines. These laws
restrict basic freedoms such as the freedom of
assembly and freedom of speech, both necessary for a
candidate to get his message to the voter. To
mention a few,

1. The Police Act of 1967 provides the police with
powers of issuing licenses (permits) with respect to
public gatherings and may impose conditions they
deem necessary. The permit has to be applied for 14
days before the event. (Mr. Nair claimed that three
days is sufficient but the law says otherwise).
Here, an assembly in excess of more than five people
is deemed an illegal assembly. Further, while it
takes 14 days to apply for a permit, in the last
election, the campaign period lasted only 14 days.

2. The Sedition Act of 1948 has a very broad
definition of what constitutes “seditious
tendencies” on issues relating to the Malay
language, rights of Malays, Malay rulers, religion,
etc. This law has been conveniently used to harass
members of the opposition.

3. The Internal Security Act (ISA) of 1960 which was
repealed in June 2012 with what is referred to now
as SOSMA, Security Offenses (Special Measure) Act,
and the Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA) have been dubbed
by the opposition as the “same dog as the ISA with a
different collar”. These two laws allow the arrest
of any person suspected of threatening the national
security of Malaysia.

There are other laws such as the Official Secret Act
of 1972 that restricts divulging information to the
public.

The mainstream media of Malaysia is unabashedly
biased in favour of the ruling party. Hence, the
opposition has to rely on social media to get its
message across to the voters.

The process may appear to be free and fair but the
“rules of the game” do not promote a “level playing
field”.